Tips for narrowing the scope of a problem/error


There are a standard set of steps that we usually work through on a lot of support questions because they're incredibly useful in narrowing a problem down.  They center around the DBA Username, Windows Login, and Workstation.


"DBA Username"   = The username that you log into DBA with.


"Windows Profile"  = The username that you log into Windows with.


"Workstation"       = The computer being used to access DBA.


There are a lot of combinations to test using these.  So, our recommendation is to start with the easiest for you to do first.  For example, try logging into another workstation using your DBA username to see if you can reproduce the same error/problem.  Note the Windows login that was used in this second test.  If it worked, then the problem may be specific to the workstation initially used.  If the error persists between different workstations then it may be related to the Windows Profile login or possibly the DBA Username itself (or may be both workstations always encounter this problem, regardless of user).


A long list of steps could be provided here to really test a mix of all of these but it's really just mixing these up, testing for the same error/problem, and noting what combinations encountered or did not encounter the problem/error.  When reporting back to DBA support, after these some of these combinations, please let us know what worked and what didn't.